


pas de deux

by gaykavinsky (lesbiankavinsky)



Series: Ballet AU [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Getting Together, M/M, anyway, background clary/izzy and alec/magnus, god getting to type those words into archive of our own dot com really made my fuckin day!, jace's gay awakening yeehaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 10:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16532807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbiankavinsky/pseuds/gaykavinsky
Summary: For the first decade of his life, Jace had been trained by his biological father, a retired dancer who had never understood that his son might want to do anything other than classical ballet. He’d insisted on rigid discipline and a level of dedication that was probably unhealthy for anyone, let alone a nine-year-old. It wasn’t until after his father died and he was adopted by the Lightwoods, who had enrolled their own children in classes with Jace in an attempt to make dance something more than a duty he couldn’t let go of even without parental enforcement, that he’d actually started enjoying it, started seeing it as not only technique but also as art.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to angie for reading over this and being like "big gay huh" ily
> 
> i've written a bunch more of this and am Obsessed and am continuing to write today so hopefully it'll all be published relatively soon!
> 
> I know like a moderate amount of ballet so I hope this is relatively accurate, but if anything is blatantly incorrect, feel free to drop me a line!

There are few things Jace finds as comfortingly familiar as sitting with Alec and Izzy in the corner of the ballet studio, stretching before class. Ever since the Lightwoods adopted him when he was ten, the three of them have been going to class together. Through all the turmoil of siblinghood, they’ve been dancing together, and even during the three months when Alec and Izzy refused to speak to one another after Alec told their parents that Izzy had snuck out one night and not come home until three in the morning, they’d always stretched together, the three of them forming a triangle set apart from the others. So when Izzy brings someone else to stretch with them, Jace feels a knot of anxiety forming in his stomach that doesn’t dissolve no matter how insistently he tells himself that it’s irrational.

“This is Clary,” Izzy says as the two of them sit down by Jace and Alec, stretching their usual triangle into a square.

Clary waves as she presses the soles of her feet together for a butterfly stretch. Jace has seen her in class, of course, but they’ve never interacted. He’s aware of her in the way that he’s aware of the best dancers in their year, as someone to keep an eye on.

Izzy folds one foot against the other thigh and tilts her body over to reach the tips of her fingers to her toes, her ear against her knee. “Clary tells me we’re going to have a new accompanist.”

Clary nods. “He’s a friend of mine, he goes to the conservatory.”

“Oh thank god,” Alec says. “No more Camille.”

“She wasn’t so bad,” Izzy says, switching to the other leg.

“She couldn’t keep a tempo to save her life,” Alec says, and he’s right. Camille was clearly a talented pianist, but could never quite understand that playing for a ballet class wasn’t the same as being a soloist. You can’t just do whatever you want with the tempo when a bunch of dancers are trying to do pique turns at a consistent pace.

“There he is,” Clary says, and Jace follows her gaze to the door, where a guy in a t-shirt with a cartoon panda is waving to them. “I’m going to go say hi, he gets anxious about this kind of thing.” She gets up and does her graceful dancer’s run over to him, putting an arm on his shoulder.

Jace takes the opportunity to give Izzy a look that he hopes communicates something along the lines of since when do we stretch with other people?

“What?” Izzy says. “She’s nice, she’s cute, I thought maybe we should start making friends outside the family.”

“No one goes to ballet school to make friends,” Alec says in his usual dry tone, and that actually makes Jace crack a smile because it’s nice sometimes to remember that Alec is the one person he can count on to take dancing even more seriously than he does.

For the first decade of his life, Jace had been trained by his biological father, a retired dancer who had never understood that his son might want to do anything other than classical ballet. He’d insisted on rigid discipline and a level of dedication that was probably unhealthy for anyone, let alone a nine-year-old. It wasn’t until after his father died and he was adopted by the Lightwoods, who had enrolled their own children in classes with Jace in an attempt to make dance something more than a duty he couldn’t let go of even without parental enforcement, that he’d actually started enjoying it, started seeing it as not only technique but also as art. Jace is serious about ballet, but he’s serious about it in the way that a husband is serious about his wife. Alec is just serious.

Izzy jabs Alec in the shoulder with her toe. “Some of us want to have fun before the age of forty.”

They set into bickering in their usual way and Jace tunes them out, watching Clary and her friend at the piano. Clary is standing on one foot, the other extended as she turns her ankle in circles while her friend sets up his music at the piano. The guy is cute in a completely non-ballet way, not so much because of his body type as because of his body language. Jace is so used to being surrounded by people who are almost annoyingly elegant in their movements, not only by nature but by years of careful training. You can see it in the way they walk, the way they bend over to pick something up. They’re dancers in every part of their life, whether they want to be or not. So it’s nice in a weird way to see this guy, totally graceless in the way he shuffles through his sheet music, spilling some pages and scrabbling to pick them up off the ground, one leg braced against the leg of the piano bench so he won’t fall off. He keeps watching him even when Clary returns to sit back down next to Izzy, and he’s only half-listening to her chatting to Izzy, though he catches the name “Simon.”

Simon has started playing some scales and Jace is struck by the fact that as soon as he puts his hands on the keyboard, he actually does become graceful, his whole body leaning first one direction and then the other as he moves from a low C to a high one and back. Even when Jace looks away, touching his nose to his knees as he reaches toward his toes, he listens, without really knowing why, more intently than he has even listened to an accompanist warming up.

A few minutes later the teacher comes in and they all move to the barre. All through class, Jace notes, Simon keeps perfectly on tempo.

**

About a week later, Alec drops into a seat across from Jace in the cafeteria and announces, in the same tone that he might announce the death of a loved one, “Izzy has a crush.” To be fair, it’s also probably about the same tone that he’d use to announce that there’s a chance of rain the next day. With Alec, the shades of differentiation are pretty minimal.

“I could have told you that days ago,” Jace says. Izzy isn’t exactly subtle, and it took Jace about three seconds to notice how many excuses she finds to touch Clary on the shoulder or the knee while they’re stretching before class. Clary now seems to be a permanent fixture of their stretching circle, and Jace is still reminding himself on a regular basis that it’s really not a bad thing.

“Yeah, well, it’s serious now. She’s switched tables.” Alec jerks his head toward the side of the cafeteria and Jace turns to look. Sure enough, there’s Izzy, sitting across from Clary at a two-person table by the window.

“What the hell,” Jace says. “She could have brought her to eat with us.”

“I guess she wanted some privacy.”

“I guess.” Jace pokes at his salad despondently. There were plenty of people who had said, either to their faces or behind their backs, that it was weird for three siblings to all go to ballet school together, and there are probably plenty of people here who find it weird that they’re so close. But for Jace, who hadn’t really experienced family in any meaningful way until he was eleven years old, it made sense. Izzy and Alec were the friends he could always count on, who would be there for him no matter what. He was even more grateful to have them here than he had been in high school, where they’d all had their own groups. The intensely competitive environment of ballet school doesn’t really foster friendship, and it’s good to know that they’ve all got each other’s backs. The fact that Izzy seems to be drifting from them feels scary in a way that he knows it shouldn’t be. They’re all allowed to have friends outside the family, but what makes him anxious is the idea that Izzy and Alec could both end up with people more important to them than he is, and he’ll end up with no one.

**

That evening, Jace opens the door of the dorm room he shares with Alec to find Izzy all dressed up and leaning on the doorframe.

“We’re going out,” she says, without preamble.

“I was planning on going to bed early,” Jace says.

Izzy stares at him. “It’s Friday night. You need to remember that you’re allowed to have a life even if you’re the next Nijinsky.”

“Don’t flatter him,” Alec calls from the back of the room.

“We’re going out for dinner, you’re coming with us,” she says, and then leans over his shoulder to yell, “and you too, Alec.”

“Wait, who’s us?”

“Me and Clary and her pianist friend. Come on, you need to have a bit of fun. Put on something cute and meet me outside in ten, okay?”

It’s a testament to the force of Izzy’s personality and the willingness of her brothers to go along with whatever schemes she comes up with that despite their mutual plans for a quiet night in, Alec and Jace are leaving their dorm only fifteen minutes later -- it would have been ten, Alec is quick to tell Izzy, if Jace hadn’t spent so long fussing over his hair. Jace elbows Alec in the ribs, but without much force. It’s not like he can pretend to Izzy that he just wakes up with his hair looking like this.

They take the subway to Brooklyn and walk a few blocks to a restaurant called The Hunter’s Moon where Clary and Simon stand by the doorway, laughing together. Jace figures the twinge of jealousy he feels watching them has more to do with his failure to make friends outside his family at ballet school than it does with them specifically. Clary is alright -- a lot less annoying than some of the girls in class and much less scary than most of them, but he definitely doesn’t have a crush on her. When people learn that he does ballet, there tend to be a lot of jokes about seeing girls in tights and leotards, and every time he has to make the choice whether to just laugh along or explain that for him, all of this is professional and he’s really not looking at them like that. Usually he does the former; it’s a lot easier and doesn’t make people uncomfortable. For whatever reason, they do get uncomfortable about the fact that dance is really all he wants to do with his life.

“Hey,” Izzy says, pulling Clary into a hug. Alec and Jace stand back and Simon waves to them, apparently as aware as they are that all three of them are essentially just extra wheels on this proto-date. Inside, they take a booth with Alec and Jace on one side and Clary on the other between Simon and Izzy. For a while they gossip about the internal politics of the dance program -- who’s going against who for which solo, and which students are succeeding by sucking up to teachers instead of putting in the work -- and Jace feels a bit bad that Simon keeps having to ask who they’re talking about. After a bit, Alec ducks out to go to the bathroom and Izzy turns to Clary. “You wanna go see if the bar has virgin cocktails?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You guys want anything?”

Jace shrugs and Simon says, “Anything with mint in it.”

The girls get up and go, leaving Jace and Simon alone at the table. Jace folds his arm across his chest and watches Clary and Izzy at the bar.

“You’re, uh. You’re really good.”

Jace looks at Simon, an eyebrow raised.

“I watch you guys, sometimes,” Simon goes on, his words spilling out rapidly. “I have a lot of the music memorized at this point, muscle memory, you know how it is.”

Jace nods briefly, because he does. There are some combos from his high school ballet class that he could probably still do in his sleep.

“So I just let my hands do their thing and I watch you guys. You’re sort of my favorite to watch.”

“Really?”

Simon smiles now. “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, Alec is sort of perfect, as far as I can tell. And obviously I don’t know that much about ballet so I could be wrong but he seems sort of perfect, and the teacher basically never seems to correct him. And then Izzy is really like, musical and flowy, but you’re the perfect combination of both. I used to go to dance recitals all the time to support Clary, and I loved watching her of course but to be honest I sort of fell asleep when she wasn’t on stage.” He leans forward and says, conspiratorially, “You can’t tell her this, but it really wasn’t until I saw you that I really got it. Why people go to see ballet.”

Jace isn’t really sure how to react to that. He can’t help but smile, but he can’t really look at Simon, so he smiles down at the table for a moment until he can school his face into a reasonable expression of appreciation and then he looks up. “Thanks,” he says, and then, because that feels inadequate, he adds, “That’s really sweet. That, uh, that means a lot to me.”

Simon nods and seems about to say something else when Izzy and Clary return, both carrying a drink in each hand.

“Virgin mojito for Simon,” Clary says, sliding back into the both.

“And a pink lemonade for Jace,” Izzy says, pushing the glass across the table. Jace glares at her and she says, “What? You don’t get to complain, you wouldn’t say what you wanted.”

Clary and Izzy, apparently carrying on a conversation that had started when they were alone together, start bashing their least favorite ballet teacher and Jace takes advantage of the fact that Simon is watching them to watch Simon. Maybe it’s the effect of being so immersed in an art form where criticism is constant and praise is rare, but he’d been taken aback by how freely Simon complimented him, how casually he’d felt able to tell Jace something so kind. Jace wonders if he’s missing something.

Alec comes back to the table and complains about the fact that they didn’t get him a drink until Izzy tells him to go to the bar himself.

“There’s a cute bartender, you should talk to him,” she calls after him as he walks away, and he turns briefly to give her an exasperated look.

Jace grins at her. “I’d bet you good money that Alec would never hook up with a bartender.”

“You’re on,” Izzy says. “Thirty bucks.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“He needs to get laid, I’m putting all the good vibes out there that I can.”

“I won’t say no to free money. You owe me thirty bucks if Alec doesn’t hook up with the cute bartender tonight.”

“Hey, I never said tonight.”

“Okay, within the week.”

“Within the month.”

They shake hands across the table and Izzy looks over at Clary. “We’re gonna be making a lot of trips to this place. Do you think I could break into the bathroom to find that guy’s schedule? Make it look like I was just trying to find the bathroom?”

Clary laughs a big, lovely laugh and Jace hopes, for Izzy’s sake but also for his own, that his sister gets it together soon and asks this girl on a real, two-person date.

**

They start stretching by the piano, another change in routine that Jace finds grating, though he can tell by one look that Alec is much more irritated by it than he is. Clary is standing with one hand on the top of the piano, the other holding her foot behind her as she stretching her quads. “So Izzy,” she says, “are you still planning on auditioning for Swan Lake?”

“Of course,” Izzy replies. “I think I’d make a wonderful Odile. If the director is willing to cast a brown girl.”

“Misty Copeland did it.”

“Well, Misty Copeland is Misty Copeland,” Izzy says, with a rare look of doubt. “And now everyone’s on her ass because she didn’t do the [32 fouettes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxT5gnXs4Ug).”

The G major scale that Simon has been playing stops. “The 32 what now?”

“Fouettes,” Jace says. “It’s one of the most famous parts of Swan Lake.”

“Like this,” Izzy says, getting to her feet. She starts in fifth position with her arms in second and then, in a quick movement, goes up on her toes and then brings one leg up to her knee and her arms into first position as she spins around. The second spin is propelled not by the twist of her body but by her elevated leg, stretching out and whipping around before she returns her toes to the front of her knee. She does it four times before landing back in fifth position and sitting back down. “It’s that, but 32 times in a row, on point.”

“That looks complicated,” Simon says, starting up his scales again.

“A couple fouettes isn’t that hard,” Izzy says. “The tough part is doing it over and over and over again. You never get to put your leg down, you know, and it’s really not that long but it feels like forever. And then after it’s done, you have to just keep going with the rest of the ballet.”

“And why do you want to do this again?” Simon asks.

Izzy grins at him. “Because it’s what I do. I bet you want to play some ridiculously hard piano piece that sounds completely crazy and exhausting to everyone else.”

“Okay, fair.”

“I think the 32 fouettes is sort of like love,” Clary says, and Jace doesn’t miss her quick glance over at Izzy. “The hard part is sustaining it, right?”

Alec and Jace exchange a glance, and Jace is pretty sure they’re both thinking that all their lives are going to get a lot more bearable when Clary and Izzy finally go on a real date. It’s not like his sister to dance around a relationship this way, but he can only guess that that means she’s really serious about it. Both he and Alec know better than to question her about it; all they’ll get until she knows for sure where this is going is flippant answers and deflections.

Clary and Izzy step a bit away from the piano and do a few fouettes in front of the mirror, comparing technique. Simon, fingers still moving over the keyboard, glances down at Jace.

“People hear how many hours a day I practice and think I’m crazy, but honestly you guys scare the crap out of me. I have no idea how you do it.”

Jace shrugs. “Same as you. Practice. And a healthy dose of genetic predisposition to be fair.”

“At least I get to sit down when I practice.”

“Hey, I never have to go to the gym.”

“Jokes on you, I don’t go to the gym either.”

“You should try it out sometime, I hear it does wonders.” He turns to stretch over his left leg and finds Alec glaring at him. “What?”

Alec shrugs and gets up, going over to the barre and propping one foot up on it.

“What’s his deal?” Simon asks.

“Alec? He’s always like that.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

“Eldest sibling syndrome.”

“Bad case, apparently. I have an older sister and she’s never been that. Dour.”

Jace laughs. “Alec can be fun. Sometimes. Definitely not in class.”

“Not really at The Hunter’s Moon either.”

“I hate to say this, but Izzy might be right. He might just need a good fling.”

“I always heard ballet students were all over each other.”

“Maybe some of them. Not Alec. And anyway, you’d be surprised by how few of the guys here are gay.”

“Huh,” Simon says.

Jace looks up at him, expecting him to say more, but he looks intently focused on his arpeggios and so Jace decides it’s best to leave him alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He turns to look at Simon, who has a huge smile on his face. “Seriously,” he says, “that’s completely amazing.”
> 
> “Thanks,” he says, standing and moving over to the piano bench. Simon shuffles to the side, and Jace sits down next to him. Then he flashes a grin at Simon and reaches out to play Chopsticks on the keyboard. Simon laughs, and Jace bumps his shoulder with his own. “Don’t sell yourself short,” he says. “I know you think we’re pretty spectacular, and don’t get me wrong, we definitely are --” Simon snorts at this, but Jace smiles and keeps going. “But you’re pretty spectacular, too. You’re not less of an artist because what you do is less. I don’t know. Flashy, I guess.”

That Saturday night finds the five of them back at The Hunter’s Moon, where Izzy, determined to get her 30 dollars, has dragged them back in hopes of getting Alec to talk to the cute bartender. She actually manages to sweet talk him into getting their drinks, but as soon as he leaves, Izzy and Jace fall to bickering.

“If you want to set him up with a guy, you should probably at least tell him.”

“Come on,” Izzy says, rolling her eyes. “You know him as well as I do and you know that’ll never work.”

“I don’t know Alec, but I think Izzy might have the right idea,” Simon says. He’s watching the bar and Jace follows his gaze to see Alec talking to a man with fantastically tall hair who may or may not -- it’s a bit hard to tell from this distance -- be wearing not only eye shadow but also a significant among of glitter sprinkled across his face. He’s got his elbows up on the bar, leaning toward Alec, and it definitely looks like he’s flirting. Izzy and Jace turn to each other and Izzy is grinning broadly. 

“Within a month,” she says. 

Jace rolls his eyes, but as much as he’d like those 30 bucks, he has to admit he’s rooting for Alec.

“I’m sort of surprised,” Simon says. “I wouldn’t have guessed that’s Alec’s type.”

“My big brother is full of surprises,” Izzy says happily. “You should have seen the guy who took him to prom.”

“That guy doesn’t count, they went to prom and that was it.”

Izzy sighs dramatically. “I wish I could believe that he managed to deflower Alec that night but I’m sure he didn’t.”   


Simon wrinkles his nose. “Who says  _ deflower _ ?”

“Only Izzy, I think,” Clary says, smiling at her. 

Simon is still watching the bar when he says, “Wait, so has Alec not had other boyfriends?”

“Nope,” Izzy says. “He’s cute and he’s available but he’s not really the best at putting himself out there. I mean, I can’t even imagine what he’d put on a dating profile. ‘Hi, I’m Alec, I dance, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve had fun.’ I love him but he’s not especially lively.”

Simon is still watching Alec’s back. Jace is starting to wonder if Simon’s gay, and he’s also starting to wonder if Simon has a crush on Alec, which would seem counterintuitive based on the few things he’s said about him, but the thought remains stubbornly lodged in Jace’s head. It would be nice, Jace tells himself. It would really be nice for someone to like Alec. Alec deserves that. 

When Alec comes back to the table he’s wearing a smile that Jace recognizes as the kind of smile he can’t suppress.

“Okay,” he says, taking his drink from the tray Alec is carrying. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Alec says, but Jace can see a flush rising up his neck.

“Spill,” Izzy says, leaning across the table. 

“It’s nothing,” Alec says, but he’s still smiling, and after a moment of everyone at the table staring at him, he says, “the bartender just gave me his number, that’s all.”   


Izzy shrieks in delight and turns to high-five Clary. 

“Oh my god,” Alec says, putting his face in his hands and mumbling something none of them can hear.

“What’s that?” Jace asks, poking him in the ribs.

Alec shifts away from him and peers out through his fingers. “Please don’t make a big deal about this.”

Jace snorts. “You’re acting like a middle schooler, I love this.”

“We’re gonna make a huge deal about this,” Izzy says. “We’re writing mom and dad a formal letter, we’re getting a cake --”

“A ‘congrats on the sex’ cake,” Jace adds.

“We’re posting an announcement on the bulletin boards in the dorms --”

“I’m feeling really grateful not to have siblings right now,” Clary says with a laugh.

“Please let me go on a date with this guy without being weird about it,” Alec says. “Please.”

Izzy grins. “Fat chance.” 

Later, when Alec is in the bathroom, Jace and Izzy agree that for the sake of the bet, they’re defining “hooking up” as making out -- “More than one kiss,” Jace insists -- but not necessarily sex. 

“I swear,” Izzy sighs, “the only way I’m losing this bet is if Alec just refuses to tell us what happens on that date.”

That Monday, the cast lists for the winter recital are posted and before Jace can even fight his way through the crowd to see his part, he finds himself attacked by Izzy and Alec -- Izzy with a hug and Alec with a much harder than necessary punch to the arm. 

“You got a solo,” Izzy cries happily. “A big one, near the end of the show. Oh I’m so proud of you!”

The three of them make it to the cast list to look together and it’s true, there’s Jace’s name near the bottom of the list. Second to last, which is impressive for a first year student. Izzy and Alec have parts respectively in a quartet and a pas de deux -- unsurprising, given what a good and steady partner Alec is -- and they both seem happy enough with their assignments that Jace doesn’t feel guilty about his own success. This is the three of them, celebrating together, and he feels as much relief about that as excitement about his own part. 

“You’ll need plenty of extra practice,” Izzy says. “I’ll ask Clary if she thinks it’d be okay to ask Simon to come in and play for you as a favor.”

With that she’s gone, slipping easily through the crowd to find her friend. 

“If that doesn’t work out I’ll just use a recording,” he says to Alec.

“Live music’s always better,” Alec says, his voice flat though Jace can tell that he’s happy. “And Simon will definitely do it.”

“You think?”   


Alec gives him a cryptic look and walks back toward the classroom, leaving Jace to look once more at the cast list before he tells himself it really is true and follows Alec’s retreating figure.

In the classroom, Clary and Izzy are standing by the piano, chins propped on their hands like matching statues. Jace heads over to them and Simon, hearing his footsteps, turns to grin at him.

“Congrats on the solo. Clary tells me you might need some musical assistance.”

“That’d be great, if you have the time.”

“Sure,” Simon says. “My pleasure.” 

That evening, Simon meets Jace outside the main classroom building and together they go to the practice studio that Jace has reserved for the hour. Simon flips through the music that Jace has copied for him. 

“This looks more complicated than the stuff you guys use for class.”   


“Is that a problem?”

“Oh, no,” Simon says, and when he looks up at Jace he’s smiling wide. “It’ll be more fun.”   


Jace nods. “Good.”

When they get to the studio, Jace stretches and warms up as Simon plays through some scales and then takes a first stab at the sheet music. He stumbles through a couple parts and practices them a few times before moving on, but he doesn’t have that much trouble with it, as far as Jace can tell. 

“You’re pretty good at sight reading,” Jace says, moving over to the piano. 

“I have to be,” Simon says, rubbing his hands on his pant legs. “Not just for conservatory, you’ve gotta be able to pick up music really quickly if you want any paying gigs. It’s not what I’m best at, actually. I got started with music because I’d hear a tune I liked on the radio, and I could basically replicate it on my mom’s piano. She thought I was a genius.”

“Sounds pretty impressive.”

“Yeah, well, it turned out to be a bit of a liability. I tricked my teacher into thinking I could read music for ages by just listening to her play a piece and copying it. When she finally caught on she said she wasn’t mad at me for lying, but that I had to learn to read music if I was serious about piano. It’s sort of what made me realize that I was. Serious about it, I mean.”

Jace makes a low humming sound. “I was serious about ballet for a long time before I loved it.”

“Yeah?”   


“Yeah. My dad was sort of a crazy stage dad? But he died when I was ten and then the Lightwoods adopted me and ballet started being something I did with Izzy and Alec. That’s when I fell in love with it.”

“I’m sorry about your dad,” Simon says.

“That he was a crazy stage dad or that he died?”   


Simon frowns. “I’m not sure. Which should it be? Both, I guess?”   


“Yeah, I think both.”

There’s a moment of silence and then Simon says, “I lost my dad, too. When I was little.”

“I’m sorry.”

Simon shrugs. “It is what it is. I mean, you know that.”

“Yeah,” Jace says, and he wishes he were sitting next to Simon on the bench, that they could have this moment without the bulk of the piano between them.

“Anyway,” Simon says, his tone shifting abruptly, “shall we get started?”   


“Yeah, sure,” Jace says. He’d gone through the choreography with his teacher earlier and he thinks he has most of it fixed in his head, but he’s got notes just in case. “Keep it slow, though, okay?”

Simon nods and Jace moves out into the center of the floor, facing the mirror. He looks at Simon and they breathe in together, the familiar cue of performers everywhere, and begin. Simon goes slowly and Jace moves through the steps with minimum artistry, focused for the moment on getting movement into his body, into his muscle memory. They go through it once, twice, and as Jace becomes more comfortable and confident, he begins to add flourishes here and there, making it his own. 

Then, when Jace is in the middle of a  [ butterfly jump ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7AaZhEOJSY) , the music stops abruptly. In his surprise, Jace lands a little sloppily and turns to look at Simon, annoyed. Simon is staring at him.

“Everything okay?” Jace asks, trying not to sound too irritable.

“Yeah, everything’s -- just, you know. Whoa.”

“What?”   


“You weren’t doing that jump before. I mean, I don’t think you were. I mean, I’m only half watching. But like. Whoa. I didn’t know people could do that. Like I didn’t know that was physically possible.”

Jace feels a little bubble of pride in his gut, as well as something else. It’s not usual for accompanists to pay more attention to the dancers than is necessary for them to hold a steady tempo together. The fact that Simon is interested enough in watching Jace that he’s getting distracted from the music is technically a bad thing, but it makes Jace happy all the same. It’s just pride, he tells himself. It’s true that he hadn’t been doing it before -- he’d been marking it instead of doing the full leap because he wasn’t sure he could do it without messing up the next step and derailing the whole combination, but this time he’d felt a little spurt of confidence. 

Simon says, “Can you do it again?”   


Jace grins. “Sure,” he says. He’s used to performing in front of people, but somehow this singular, focused pair of eyes is more unnerving than an audience has ever been. Putting himself into position, he closes his eyes and tells himself not to be silly. He just did this, and he can do it again. Even if he knows this time that Simon is watching. He does one turn and then another and then leaps, chest open and arms stretched out behind him, aware even in the middle of this jump of each finger held in its proper place, knees bent. It’s just a split second and then his foot is hitting the ground, his whole body engaged in the effort of one last turn before he falls to his knee, planting the other foot in front of him.

He turns to look at Simon, who has a huge smile on his face. “Seriously,” he says, “that’s completely amazing.” 

“Thanks,” he says, standing and moving over to the piano bench. Simon shuffles to the side, and Jace sits down next to him. Then he flashes a grin at Simon and reaches out to play  _ Chopsticks  _ on the keyboard. Simon laughs, and Jace bumps his shoulder with his own. “Don’t sell yourself short,” he says. “I know you think we’re pretty spectacular, and don’t get me wrong, we definitely are --” Simon snorts at this, but Jace smiles and keeps going. “But you’re pretty spectacular, too. You’re not less of an artist because what you do is less. I don’t know. Flashy, I guess.”

Simon is smiling down at the keyboard and Jace feels a sharp delight, knowing that he caused that smile. He wants to reach out and turn Simon’s face toward his, to make their eyes meet. He sits on his hands. 

“Wanna start again from the top?” Simon asks. “Promise I won’t stop, no matter how impressive you are.”

Jace grins. “Yeah,” he says, getting up and moving back to the center of the floor. “From the top.”

**

Later that week, Jace joins Alec and Izzy by the piano to find them squabbling significantly more violently than usual. Izzy has a pointe shoe in her hand and is beating Alec on the shoulder with it. Alec looks like he’s just trying to get away from her.

“Hey,” Jace says, coming up behind Izzy and grabbing the shoe out of her hand. “What’d he do?”

“He won’t tell me about his date.”

“He wouldn’t tell me either when he got home last night but I didn’t feel the need to get violent about it.”

“He said he’d tell me if I ask Clary out.”

“Seems reasonable,” Jace says, fiddling with the ribbon of the shoe.

Izzy groans. “Not you, too.”

“Look, you guys clearly like each other, and you keep bringing us along when you go out with her even though you obviously want to be alone. Just take her on a real date.”

Izzy makes a face like she’s being asked to launder the jock straps. “Fine. I’ll do it. But now Alec has to tell.”

“I’ll tell when I see you ask her out.”

“You think I’m gonna chicken out?”   


“Alec, come on,” Jace says, tossing Izzy’s shoe back to her. “We’re your siblings, getting information about your personal life shouldn’t be like pulling toenails.”   


“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what it should be like.”

“Okay, you don’t have to give us details, but you have to tell us if you made out with him because if you did then I owe Izzy 30 bucks.”

Alec squints at him. “You made a bet?”

“That’s what you get for being a. Well.

“A wet noodle,” Izzy finishes for him.

“Yeah.”

Alec looks like he’s trying to decide whether to be genuinely angry or remain at his usual level of bored exasperation. He goes with the latter. He sighs and says, “Yes, we did, and I’m not telling you anything else about it unless we get married and get to our tenth wedding anniversary, at which point I will still tell you nothing.” He turns on his heel and slouches off toward the barre.

Izzy grins up at Jace. “He’s happy, isn’t he.”

“I’ll get you the money after class.”

They drop down to the floor.

“So,” Simon says, “Alec has a boyfriend?”

“Wait,” Izzy says, “Jace, you know what this means? Alec is the only Lightwood who isn’t single. Oh, I hate that.”

Jace shrugs. “He deserves it.” And it’s true; Alec may not have much talked about it, either at the time or later, but Jace knows he didn’t have the easiest time coming to grips with his sexuality. The fact that he hasn’t had a real boyfriend until now is testament enough to that. Watching Alec at the barre, he thinks, Izzy’s right. It might not come across in the tone of his voice or the way he talks about the date, but something about Alec’s posture has changed. Something more solid about the set of the shoulders. He’s lucky to know Alec this well, to be able to see the shifts of his mood in the smallest changes of body language, because God knows he isn’t going to show it in any other way. 

“Jace?” 

Jace turns to the sound of Simon’s voice. 

“You okay?”

Jace glances over at Izzy, who has been joined by Clary. The two of them are chatting happily, not paying any attention to Jace and Simon. He turns back to Simon and nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m fine.

Simon turns, straddling the piano bench and leaning forward on both hands. “You just seem sort of down all of a sudden.”

Jace wonders whether he should put into words the fear that’s been following him around lately that his siblings will find friends and partners and lives of their own and lose all interest in him, that he’ll be alone the rest of his life because he was so excited to find a family that he stopped looking for anything outside it. Then he thinks he should just say he’s fine and flash a smile and move on. Instead, he says, “It’s sort of complicated. I’ll tell you when we practice tonight, okay? Just us?”

Simon smiles so briefly that Jace thinks he might have imagined it. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.” 

They both go back to their respective warmups and even though he didn’t actually talk about it, Jace feels better just knowing that he’s going to, that Simon will be there tonight, ready not just to play through the music for his solo but also to talk. Maybe part of it, too, is the thought that even if Izzy and Alec grow away from him, he might not be so alone after all. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jace shrugs and keeps walking. He knows, of course, that he looks good, that he’s fit and all that, and he spends enough time on his hair to think of himself as reasonably attractive, but maybe it’s something about the relentlessness of ballet training, the endless hours spent staring at himself in a mirror that make it hard for him to see beyond the flaws. And besides, the beauty of a dancer is somehow separate from regular human beauty, the kind of beauty that makes people attracted to one another. Dancers -- as Simon himself has said -- look impossible. In ways, they’re more like statues than flesh and blood, creations to be looked at, marveled at, even, but not touched. He wants to touch Simon. God, he thinks, Izzy is right, they all need to get out more. He’s not sure how he ended up feeling touch starved when so much of his day to day work involves holding and lifting and turning the female dancers, but here he is.

That night, when the hour that Jace has the practice room reserved it up and they’re both packing up their things, Simon says, “So, did you want to talk? About whatever was going on earlier?”

Jace lifts his bag to his shoulder and opens his mouth, hesitating. He’d been eager to talk earlier, in spite of his instinct to shut up and pretend he’s fine, but now he’s not sure how to articulate his fears about his siblings without sounding like a complete loser. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he shrugs, tries to make himself seem nonchalant. “It’s just sort of weird, having Alec be in a relationship. Even the early stages of one. I mean, I’m happy for him, obviously, but I’m also not sure what to expect. With us, I mean. Him and me. And now Izzy’s going to ask Clary out and I’m sure she’ll say yes, and Izzy’s dated before but -- well, you’ve seen the way she looks at Clary.”

Simon nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I have. And I know what that means. I used to look at her like that.”

Not gay, then, Jace thinks. He says, “Really?”

“Yup,” Simon says, pushing open the door of the studio and holding it for Jace. “For ages and ages. But then, slowly, I realized I was happy with her as my best friend. And she’s been my best friend even when she’s dating other people. It doesn’t change. I mean, okay, I won’t lie, when people get into new relationships they tend to disappear for a while, and there have been plenty of times when I don’t get as much time with her as I do when she’s single. But that’s okay because I know that I’m the one relationship in her life that’s never gonna change. And that’s you and your siblings. It’s not like things will stay exactly the same but they’re not going to abandon you, either.” 

Jace nods, not quite ready to say anything.

“Look,” Simon says, “my therapist taught me this positive thought pattern that I’m supposed to use when I get really anxious. A lot of the time when I get really anxious I just forget, but it’s still useful sometimes. The basic idea is that you’re supposed to take your fears and say  _ even if _ . So like, even if your siblings get into serious relationships, they’re not going to ditch you. But even if they ditch you, you’ve got other friends. Like me.”

Jace’s heart does a little flip and he looks quickly at Simon. Are they friends? Can they call themselves that?

“And even if you don’t have other real friends, you’ll make some. And even if you can’t make friends here, you’ll finish ballet school and move somewhere else and meet new people. So basically, even if there are some lonely times, you’ll make it through them, and the lonely times won’t last forever because you’re cool and interesting and super talented and kind of scary attractive --”

Jace lets out a bark of a laugh. “Scary attractive?”

“Yeah,” Simon says. “In that sort of like, could-be-a-model way where like, probably if people don’t talk to you it’s because they look and you and think well, he’s out of even an angel’s league so why bother.”

Jace stops in the middle of the hallway. “Wait, really?”   


Simon laughs. “Yeah, did you not realize that?”

Jace shrugs and keeps walking. He knows, of course, that he looks good, that he’s fit and all that, and he spends enough time on his hair to think of himself as reasonably attractive, but maybe it’s something about the relentlessness of ballet training, the endless hours spent staring at himself in a mirror that make it hard for him to see beyond the flaws. And besides, the beauty of a dancer is somehow separate from regular human beauty, the kind of beauty that makes people attracted to one another. Dancers -- as Simon himself has said -- look impossible. In ways, they’re more like statues than flesh and blood, creations to be looked at, marveled at, even, but not touched. He wants to touch Simon. God, he thinks, Izzy is right, they all need to get out more. He’s not sure how he ended up feeling touch starved when so much of his day to day work involves holding and lifting and turning the female dancers, but here he is. 

“You live in the dorms here, right?” Simon asks, apparently judging from Jace’s silence that it’s not a topic he’s willing to delve into further. 

“Yeah,” Jace says. “I’ll walk you to the subway, though.”

“Yeah,” Simon says, smiling. “That’d be nice.”

After another moment of silence, Jace says, “It did help. What you said about Izzy and Alec.”

“Oh, good,” Simon says. “I know it sucks to feel like you’re losing everyone close to you. But seriously, I promise you’re not. And like I said, you’ve got me, so at least you got something out of this whole Clary and Izzy thing. I mean, at least I hope you did. I hope you feel like you did.”

Jace touches him lightly on the arm and says, “Yeah, I do,” before Simon can start spinning.

They walk together across the Lincoln Center Plaza, past the lit-up fountain around which couples pose. 

“Are you glad?” Simon says, seemingly out of nowhere. “That you go here?"   


“Yeah. Why?”

“It’s just intimidating, you know? Like, this place is on postcards. There’s the Metropolitan Opera, you know?”

“Yeah, I mean pretty much everyone around here has a pretty serious case of imposter syndrome, but it’s better than not being here, right? I mean, all my life, even when ballet was something I did because my father made me, it was still who I was. I couldn’t change that even if I wanted to. And I really don’t want to these days. How about you? Are you happy at conservatory?”   


Simon shrugs. “I mean, yeah, I guess. There’s nowhere I’d rather be, so in that sense I’m happy to be there. It’s just that it’s kind of lonely, you know? I love playing for you guys because it’s a group thing, you know? Getting to make art with a whole bunch of people. The thing about piano is that you spend a lot of time just sitting by yourself in a concrete cube, just you and the instrument. Sometimes I sort of wish I loved it less than I do.”

“Huh,” Jace says. “We should switch places for a day. One of my least favorite things about ballet is how relentlessly team-oriented it is. I mean, okay, sometimes that’s what I love about it, but just sometimes I want to rely on no one but myself. That’s part of why I was so happy to have the solo.”

“Well,” Simon says, smiling, “you’re not quite doing it on your own.”

“Okay, you’re right, you’re right. But you know what I mean.”

SImon nods. “Yeah, I do. It’s tough for me with all the hours of practice alone, but there’s something -- magical, I guess -- about going out on stage and it just being you and the instrument.”

“Exactly.” 

They’ve reached Simon’s subway stop and stand there, just outside the entrance. After an awkward beat of silence, Simon says, “I feel like this has been a bonding talk.” He puts his arms out. “Hug?”

“Yeah, okay,” Jace says, and steps forward. 

Simon is a warm hugger, not the kind of guy who gets all weird about personal space and tries to do a bro-hug. He puts his arms around Jace and keeps them there. Just next to his left ear, Jace hears Simon give a little sigh, and the sound does something sweet and strange to his chest. Simon squeezes him tight for just a second and then steps back, resting his hand on Jace’s shoulder for a moment. “Thanks for walking me back.”

“Yeah,” Jace says, trying not to seem rattled. “Anytime.”

He watches Simon go down into the subway and turns back toward campus. The talk with Simon comforted him, but somehow his thoughts won’t coalesce now so that he feels not the sharp anxiety of that morning but a sense of lostness. It’s like he can’t make sense of himself. He’s grateful that his feet take him by habit back to his dorm, where he’s barely taken a step into his room before he finds Izzy in his arms. 

“Jace!” She says, stepping back. “I was just telling Alec about my date with Clary.”

“So you really asked her out?”

“Oh ye of little faith.”

“And it was good?”

“It was wonderful. We really just click, you know? I’m so comfortable with her, even though I haven’t known her very long.”

Jace drops into the beanbag in the corner of the room and listens to Izzy, starry-eyed, gush about her date, and all the confusion of his walk home dissipates. Simon had been right; his siblings developing other relationships doesn’t mean he’ll lose them. Alec is Alec and it’s probably true that they won’t learn anything about his mystery boyfriend until they’ve been married ten years, but Izzy is also still Izzy, and he’s sure he’ll hear about every date, good and bad, for the foreseeable future. This evening will be just like so many of their evenings in the past, the three of them together, talking, probably at some point throwing popcorn at each other. Their bond, with all its affection and aggravation and support and teasing and love, is safe. It always will be.

**

Over the course of the next week, class and rehearsals ramp up rapidly in intensity as they approach the winter recital. There’s one day when Jace almost calls Simon to cancel their private session because he feels too tired to do another hour of practice after the day he’s had. But then he realizes he doesn’t actually have Simon’s number -- which strikes him, now, as deeply weird -- so he meets him as usual outside the building. 

“Can we take it easy today?” He asks as he opens the door. “I’m completely exhausted.”

“If you like, you can just lie on the floor while I practice. I don’t mind.”

“That sounds amazing, actually.”

Simon laughs. “I could teach you a piano piece. Something simple, I promise.”

“Sure,” Jace says, smiling over at him. “I’ve always thought I should be able to play more than chopsticks, as a dancer.”

“As a human you should be able to play more than chopsticks.”

In the rehearsal room they sit side by side at the piano bench, their bags discarded by the door. “I’ll teach you the  [ Brahms lullaby ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm8KyglOAvM) . You’ll probably recognize it, it’s one of those tunes that basically everyone knows. We’ll start with one hand,” Simon says. He touches one key. “Put your thumb here, and then the rest of your fingers on the next keys. Like that.” Then he puts his own hand over Jace’s and presses down first one finger then another, playing out a tune that Jace does, in fact, recognize. He’s having a bit of trouble processing it though, because Simon’s hand is warm against his, and his skin is surprisingly soft. But that does make sense, Simon must take good care of his hands. 

“There,” Simon says, lifting his hand and leaving Jace feeling inexplicably bereft. “Do you think you can do it on your own?”

Jace clears his throat. “Uh, not quite. Could you do it with me one more time?”   


It ends up being three times. As easily as Jace retains the combinations of dances, he can’t quite seem to remember the pattern of the notes. When he finally does it, stumbling once or twice, he’s rewarded with a huge smile from Simon. 

“That’s it! There’s a left hand part, but I’ll teach that to you sometime when you’re a little less tired.”

“That seems like a good idea,” Jace says. He must look a wreck. On top of the intensity of training, he hasn’t been sleeping well lately. “Hey,” he says, brightening up, “I’ll return the favor. I’ll show you a simple ballet step.”

“Okay,” Simon says, following Jace to the middle of the floor. “I can’t promise you no one will get injured, but I’m game.”

“Here,” Jace says. He stretches out one leg, toe pointed, draws an arc across the floor, and then crosses that foot with the other and twists his whole body around to land in fifth position. “It’s called a soutenu turn.”

Simon attempts to copy him but his legs end up in a tangle and when he grabs Jace’s arm to try to steady himself, they end up both tumbling to the ground, laughing. When the laughter dies down, Simon looks over at him, smiling. “I’m sure you’d be a great teacher if your student wasn’t a complete klutz.”

Jace shrugs. “Hey, everyone’s got their thing. I can’t make music the way you do.”

Simon smiles again and this time it’s a softer smile. He reaches out and begins to push Jace’s hair, which has fallen across his face, behind his ear. Without really meaning to, Jace flinches away from the touch and Simon snatches his hand back, sitting up. 

“Sorry,” Simon says. “Sorry, that was really weird, I didn’t --”

Jace is sitting up too now, and it’s suddenly very urgent that Simon know he didn’t mind, that he was just surprised, not disgusted, that Simon can touch him like that again, right now. He’ll consider the full ramifications of that later, because right now all he can think about is Simon’s hand in his hair. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay, you can -- it’s okay.”

Simon looks at him, tilting his head. “I can?”

Jace nods, a little breathless. He really can’t think too hard about this. He can’t really think at all.  _ Please _ is the only word that’s coming into his head.  _ Please please please.  _

Simon reaches out again, brushing Jace’s hair out of his eyes and then resting his hand on the side of his face, thumb against Jace’s cheekbone. Jace leans against the touch. He wants to kiss Simon’s wrist, but he doesn’t. Simon says, “Can I?” 

Jace nods and then Simon is leaning forward, scooting closer to him with his usual charming gracelessness and then Simon is kissing him, just once, very lightly on the lips. He pulls away and instinctively Jace reaches out to grab the hand that had just been cupping his face. Simon smiles and lets Jace hold that hand, reaching up with the other to take off his glasses and fold them and set them on the floor next to him. It’s all done carefully and slowly and Jace is dizzy, thinking how different this is from the frenzied passion he’d always associated with the first time you kiss someone, thinking how much better this is, the gentleness of Simon’s hand when it comes to rest on the back of his neck, pulling him in to kiss him again.

Jace melts into the kiss. He’s kissed girls before and at some point he just accepted that it’s never the way it is in the movies, that you have to manufacture all that electricity and urgency, that you pretend in order to make others feel better. Now, with Simon cupping his face and kissing him, Jace’s lower lip between his teeth, the ground seems to be shifting. It’s like stepping into a technicolor world after living an entire life in black and white and assuming that was all there was. He feels as sharply alive as he does when he’s performing and he knows every step by heart so that he doesn’t have to think for a moment about what he’s doing, when he becomes pure body. Simon’s hand moves over his shoulder blade and Jace wonders how people survive this, feeling like every nerve is raw, exposed. He never wants it to stop. 

Gently, terribly gently, Simon lowers them back down onto the ground, moving over Jace and Jace is just starting to wonder when he learned to be that smooth when Simon starts kissing along his jaw and down his neck and the thought is immediately extinguished. He’s grabbing the back of Simon’s shirt, eyes closed tight, moving instinctively. It’s only when Simon stops that he opens his eyes. Simon is propped up above him, looking a little concerned, but a little delighted with himself as well. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Jace says, though even to himself his voice sounds a bit weak, and he’s realizing that he’s distinctly lightheaded. “Yeah, why? Did I do something.”

Simon grins down at him and says, “Yeah, you just made a sound, but I guess it was a happy sound.” He kisses Jace’s neck again and this time Jace notices the sound he makes and faintly wishes he still had enough coherence or pride to find it embarrassing, but he really, really doesn’t. Part of him wonders if he should be doing something, but he immediately shoots that thought down with the pure and simple fact that he couldn’t possibly do anything, at least not right now, at least not with Simon’s teeth against his collarbone. All he can do is hold Simon as close as possible, one hand finding the exposed stretch of skin at his waist. A hand at his jaw, Simon returns to kiss his mouth once again before propping himself back on his elbow and looking at Jace who is reaching out, trying to pull Simon back. Simon takes the hand and kisses it on the palm before resting it against his own chest. 

“You know,” Simon says, “I really thought you were straight. Not like a stereotyping thing, just from things you said.”

Jace groans and rolls toward him, pressing his forehead to Simon’s chest. “Do we have to talk about this now?” He feels Simon’s hand rest on the top of his head and then combing through his hair and feels absurdly, exuberantly safe.

“No,” Simon says, “but I guess I just don’t really feel like being your experiment. I mean, everyone gets to experiment if they want to and I’m fine with that, I’m fine, you know, messing around with people who are still questioning, as long as we’re all honest about it up front. But, uh. Not you.” 

Jace leans back from Simon, though he hates to do it, because he needs to look him in the face. “What do you mean?” He asks.

Simon shrugs, looks away. “You’re. You know. You’re special.” 

He has to stare at Simon a long moment to be sure he heard right, to be sure Simon means it. There’s a moment when he wishes he could reach out and touch him, and then he remembers with a quick burst of happiness that he’s allowed to, and so he does, running a finger along the little stretch of exposed collarbone within the v of his v-neck. Simon shivers. “If you’d asked me this morning, I would have said I was straight. But I didn’t know shit this morning.”

Simon looks down at him and starts to smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. What I’ve felt in -- what, how long have we been here? Half an hour?”

Simon’s smile twists, like he’s trying not to laugh. “I think it’s been about five minutes.”

“Well,” Jace says. “Shit. What I’ve felt in five minutes with you is honestly more than I’ve ever felt with any girl, ever. And I had a like two year relationship in high school.”

Now Simon is grinning, broad and unashamed. “Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, what do you know, I turned one.”

Jace lunges forward to tackle Simon and they roll over and over, wrestling and laughing until Simon collapses against Jace’s chest. Carefully, Jace folds his arms around Simon and holds him there, not desperate and grabbing like before but quite tenderly. He wants to cry, to press a kiss to Simon’s forehead and say something absurd and enormous like  _ you saved me _ , but he’s pretty sure that would put him in serious danger of fucking this whole probably still very fragile thing up, so he just holds Simon like that and hopes that he’s communicating some small portion of what he’s feeling. Simon moves a hand across Jace’s chest and sighs. 

“You know, your body is  _ ridiculous _ .”

“Yeah?” Jace says, thinking of what he’d thought just days before about the untouchability of dancer’s bodies. So much for that.

“Honestly I’m still really intimidated. I just kissed you like, quite a bit and I’m still thinking, nah, he’s probably out of my league.” 

Jace pulls Simon’s face up to his own and kisses him once, hard. “Don’t be absurd.”

Simon laughs and kisses him again. “I’m not, I’m just saying --” 

“Simon, you’re gorgeous. You might not dance a ridiculous number of hours a day but you’re -- I mean look at you. Look at you, I --” He breaks off to kiss Simon again, because he feels like he’s not getting his point across, and it’s really important that he get his point across, and right now it seems like the best way to do that might just be to kiss Simon silly. He pulls back and Simon is smiling so, so wide and Jace kisses the smile lines extending from the corners of his eyes and then he kisses his eyebrows and the tip of his nose and the corner of his jaw and then, for good measure, his mouth a few more times. “Okay?” He says. “Get it?”

“I think I do.”


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon is dressed up for the occasion in a dark suit, and he’s holding two bouquets, one of red roses and the other of yellow, to his chest. He presses the red ones into Jace’s arms and leans across them to kiss him. 
> 
> “You were amazing,” he says, brushing Jace’s hair out of his eyes. “I totally stand by what I said, you’re the best one to watch.”

The winter recital takes place two weeks later, and despite the frequent and entirely unprofessional breaks Jace has been taking during his rehearsals with Simon, he goes in feeling prepared and is happy with his performance even if, as always, he’s aware of even the smallest mistakes he made. 

He meets Alec, Izzy, and Clary backstage, and, when all of them have changed out of their costumes into street clothes, they leave through the stage door. There’s a cluster of people there ready to greet the students, and the three Lightwood siblings look through the crowd for the ones there to see them. Their parents weren’t able to make it -- though they’ve already made promises to be there for the spring recital -- so it’s only friends they’re looking for tonight. And there, right at the back of the crowd, are Magnus -- they’d finally gotten Alec to cough up the name of his mysterious boyfriend a week ago, and Simon. Simon is dressed up for the occasion in a dark suit, and he’s holding two bouquets, one of red roses and the other of yellow, to his chest. He presses the red ones into Jace’s arms and leans across them to kiss him. 

“You were amazing,” he says, brushing Jace’s hair out of his eyes. “I totally stand by what I said, you’re the best one to watch.”

“You might be a little biased.”

“Yeah, whatever, I don’t care,” Simon says. 

“You guys want to go out for something to eat?” Alec asks.

“Oh my god,” Izzy says, “does that mean we actually get to talk to Magnus? Like, socially?”

Alec rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to ask you to ignore him the entire night.”

“That’d be quite rude,” Magnus says, something like laughter dancing in his eyes, and Jace is pleased that Alec has found someone willing to poke a little fun at him.

“Definitely something to eat,” Jace says. 

“Oh,” Clary says, spotting the second bouquet in Simon’s arms. “Is that for me?”

“Of course,” Simon says, and they hug.

“He’s been getting me yellow roses for my recitals since we were twelve,” Clary explains.

“Wait, does that mean I’m the only one who didn’t get any flowers?” Izzy asks.

“Oh, we can share mine,” Clary says quickly.

“I suppose that’ll do,” Izzy says, fake-dramatic but clearly blushing.

“Hunter’s Moon?” Simon suggests, and they all agree. 

On their way to the subway, Simon slips his hand into Jace’s and squeezes tight. “You really were amazing,” he says. “I could have watched you all night.”

“Yeah, well,” Jace says. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I came up with the concept for this fic and wrote all of it in 24 hours so it was a total crazy whirlwind. I had loads of fun writing it and I hope it's been fun to read as well :)


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